Baked Saffron Pancakes & Forest Berries

A while back we spent a weekend on the island Gotland in southern Sweden. One of their traditional dishes is baked saffron pancake with whipped cream and dewberry jam. The pancakes are made on rice porridge, mixed almonds, whole milk, eggs, sugar, flour and saffron. They taste incredible, but won’t win any healthiest cake awards. Whenever we come across a great tasting dessert we always ask ourselves: “How could we do this our way?“, and last week we decided to give this one a try.

We have replaced quite a few ingredients in our recipe. They are significantly healthier now, and as far as we can remember they taste quite similar to the original. Maybe a little more dense, but on the other hand you can now eat them as breakfast as well, even though they were originally intended as a dessert. That’s always a good quality from a dessert! The saffron, the pieces of almonds and the shredded carrots are just great together. Warm, sweet and saffrony.

Since dewberries almost only grow on Gotland we instead made a jam out of the only berries that you can get in Sweden this time of the year. Frozen. During the summer we fill our home with as many fresh berries as we can get hold of (and afford). Nothing beats fresh berries, right? But frozen berries are not to be underestimated. They are both beautiful and a real life saver during the winter. Make sure they are unsweetened (in Sweden most berries are). We made a 15-minute-jam with a bag of frozen forest berries (with the beautiful Italian name “Frutti di Bosco”) and only sweetened it with some dried prunes. Ridiculously simple. If you have the pancakes for dessert, a dollop of mascarpone cheese tastes a lot better than whipped cream. You could also go for some turkish yogurt.

Making the pancakes: Preheat the oven to 350F (175°C). Mash the banana with a fork, add the eggs and whisk together. Add soy milk, rice flour, baking powder, salt and saffron and stir around. Shred the carrots and chop the almonds coarsely , add to the mixture and stir around. Grease the inside of 1 large baking tin or 6, 5-inch tartlet tins with coconut oil. Pour the batter into the tins and bake for about 20 minutes. Serve the pancakes while they are warm, together with forest berry jam and a dollop of mascarpone cheese.

mmmm deliciosoooo;) A great saffron recipe just in time for 1:a advent! Seems that you go on nice little adventures from time to time:) Any great findings on Gotland? I´ll give it a try making a vegan version of these yellow beauties.. Much Green Love to you and thanks for…all that you are!

Saffron pancakes? Really? I’m so glad I found this recipe. I love saffron. It’s one of my favourite spices. I’ve never tried it in a pancake before. I’m excited to try this recipe.

You’re so lucky you get to go on adventures. I’m stuck at home with the kids all the time. These pancakes look so delicious, especially with the fruit jam and mascarpone cheese. Thank so much for sharing :)

Hi!
My name is Amanda, I´m brazilian and read you guys every day. Even when you don´t blog :)
Just want to say that I did this AMAZING pancakes yesterday, for my daughter´s snack (she´s the same age as Elsa), and we all loved.
As I never follow exact instructions (shame on me), I´d like to suggest two adds that I did. Put orange zest, cause orange with carrots are a favorite, and some white raisins. Please, please, pleeease try next time. :)
And thanks for evething you share with us.
Kisses, Amanda & Alice.

Every day I’ve been getting a reference to Sweden — I think this is because I’m looking for it, since I’d like to move there eventually. So, here’s today’s reference. I should start bookmarking them or keeping track. This recipe looks fantastic — I love that it’s gluten free. Your photos are amazing, too!

I’ve made this recipe twice, and loved it both times! The only problem is that it sticks a LOT to the pan. I haven’t been able to get it out without losing chunks.

The first time was a half batch. I used a medium, extremely ripe banana, so I think it had a larger banana-to-everything-else-ratio. I also ground oats in a food processesor to make whole oat flour instead of rice flour. It tasted like wonderfully rich banana bread! For the jam, I used blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries with cinnamon instead of cardamom. Delicious!

The second batch that I made was tasty, but not as good as the first. I used a large banana that was only spotted, not overripe. I used oat flour again, which I ground myself in my mortar and pestle, but that did not alter anything. I baked them for the same amount of time in 12 mini muffin cups and I waited until after everything was mixed before I added the baking powder. This made them fluffier, but that did not fit well with the eggy flavor. Make sure you add the saffron before you chop so it can color the cakes! For the jam, I used cardamom and blueberries, black currants, and two kinds of cherries. It came out thick like a paste, but I love it too much for that to be a bad thing. These are a wonderful back-to-school recipe for running to my early classes! Thank you!

I am curious, though. I noticed that you do not use oat flour in any of your recipes. Have you ever tried it? Oats naturally have a small amount of gluten, like spelt, and taste wonderfully nutty when it’s toasted. It’s easy to make the flour yourself from grinding rolled oats. The flour is also white, so brightly colored ingredients really stand out. If you have successfully used it, I would love to hear how!

Thanks again! I can’t wait to try another recipe from your wonderful site!

I absolutely love your Blog. I love the way you write your recipe.you have shown love and care for your family and for us the readers.
Having recently suffered from a lot of digestion problem and I think the tests will show some wheat and dairy intolerance,Your blog is a big inspiration/help for me. I have been for years a massive fan of cooking and baking, I have a good collection of cooking books ranging between home cooks to Michelin star cooks, in fact some of them are signed as well however, when I start eliminating wheat and dairy from my diet(and exploring the free-from isle in the supermarket), I struggled !!!!
I can’t say that my diet was bad in the first place, but wholemeal wheat was a stable and number one grain. So when I start looking for helping hand out there ,I found your blog. My first ever gluten free, wheat free recipe was on of your recipes. Not a day pass by now without visiting your blog to get ideas and inspiration.I truly Appreciate the effort and the time you put in this for us. Thanks for being here for me. Mona.

Hi! Absolutely love your blog, and this recipe looks amazing! Saffron is one of my favourite spices…
But I wonder if you ever tried making this recipe in one larger pan? How would you adjust the baking time?